The grounds on which the boat terminal is located had a definite Greek look to it already. I couldn’t see the boats from the road. There was no indication that I was indeed at the passengers ferry terminal. The roads on the grounds were full of holes, now filled with water. I could see from a distance that there was some activity of trucks but it could easily have been a manufacturing plant or an industrial area.

Being the dare devil that I am (not!) I proceeded carefully, avoiding the holes and the constantly moving forklifts until I came closer to a building with some people hanging around. I asked if this was the right place to be for someone to take a boat to Greece. They pointed me to a building. I entered a huge glass hall which was completely empty. All glass doors were closed, but there were posters of Minoan Lines, so I figured I was not too far off target. Having wandered around for 5 minutes I still hadn’t discovered any signs of life. I went back outside and asked what looked like a student (long hair, beard and backpack gave him away) if he knew anything about boats going to Greece. I had to go back inside, find a small iron door in the fartest left corner, which led to another hall where Blue Star Ferries had their offices.

It turned out that Minoan Lines wasn’t sailing on Sundays during the off season and that Blue Star Ferries was my only option for today. They were bound to leave in an hour, so I had better decide quickly. I regretted that because travelling with Minoan Lines is by far the most comfortable way to go to Greece or travel within the Greek waters. Their vessels are new and fast and the facilities on board are the best you can get. I bought a ticket to Patras, got back to the car and 15 minutes later I was parked in the lower car deck of the Blue Horizon. At eleven forty five, exactly according to schedule, the Blue Horizon left the harbour. I put my stuff in the cabin which, due to the lack of passengers, I had all to myself and went back to the upper deck outside to enjoy the view on old Venice as we were slowly passing by. Because of the early departure I hadn’t had a chance to visit it, but now at least I got a reasonably good view of the San Marco (though I couldn’t see the square of course), the numerous canals with their bridges and typical “taxi-boats” (some reckless souls were having a trip on the ice cold water), the Palace of the Doges and the Grand Canal. Half an hour later we had left Venice behind and were in high see.